|
||||
|
|
17/01/94 - HO CHI MINH CITY Diary day 4 by Bryan Adams:
They are incredibly resourceful here; nothing seems to have been wasted. All machinery that could be put back into rebuilding the place after 1975 (when the war ended) has been utilized. There are old American trucks and jeeps still running (repainted bright colours). There is still an embargo enforced here by the United States. I assume it’s partially because of the American MIA’s here. Supposedly no American businesses can trade here until the embargo is lifted, hence no cash injections, hence no big business, hence a lot of recycling. They turn cola cans into toy helicopters. We pass the Continental Hotel where Graeme Green used to write. The city reveals itself to us as we trek onward into the country. The main road is virtually dirt and very straight, built by the armies. Either side are an assortment of shanty shops with the odd brick one thrown in for good measure. French bread is a big thing here (it doesn’t quite taste the same – but it’s still good). People everywhere stare at us as our bus driver honks every other second to avoid running over the various pedestrians & tradesmen on their scooters. I saw two guys carrying huge sheets of plate glass on a Vespa, another girl with twenty or thirty live ducks strapped to her bike going top speed down this dirt road. Anywhere else in the world this would be considered complete chaos but here in Vietnam it seems to be business as usual. Thousands of hectares of rice fields pass us and we stop to have a wander round on top of them. I’ve never seen rice being grown before. A young girl comes over and asks me for money, I ask the guy from Details for his pen (maybe he’ll stop writing down everything I say) and I give it to her. She is delighted and runs off to show her friends. We arrive some time later, at the tunnels to the sound of AK47 gunfire. Obviously other tourists have come to share the
experience. Tim starts to moan about how they’ve turned it
into a “bloody theme park” (not quite). Everyone hits
the gift shop to buy tickets and hats with the Vietnamese star on
the front.
Originally built by the Vietnamese during the French occupation, this network of tunnels extended nearly 200 kilometres right underneath the Americans during the war. I watch Tim shoot a few rounds off in the rifle range and it’s back into the bus. He is an amazing character. He tells me he’s skint and that he is very grateful to Andrew Catlin (London-based photographer) and his company the opportunity to return here. He says he wants to move here. I can sort of understand why. It is a place you could disappear. Really disappear. You could build your own little existence here away from the 20th century. I’m sure that parts of China are like this. Possibly Russia too. We return home from our long journey and nobody is talking. Silence. Some of us fall asleep (your friendly author included). It has been sort of overwhelming really. Time to reflect. We have so much and offer so little. The neon lights of Ho Chi Minh City beckon us (it’s strange for a city that has no lights, to have these huge neon signs advertising European corporations all over these tiny jungle shanty shacks). The sleepy Saigon river flows back and forth all day and as I sit here writing this, I know you (the reader) will not fully grasp what this place is all about from my meagre writings. You’d have tocheck it out yourselves. All I knew about Vietnam before I came here was the terrible history of war and human rights violations and from what I’d seen in the movies or in the media. Vietnam is a beautiful country. It’s probably about to be swallowed by western businesses. I uncovered a few stories here. There are millions more in the naked city.
|
|||
|
® 2003 18 Til I Die.co.uk. All rights
reserved.
|
||||
|
|